


The Act of Leaving (oh baby, paradise seemed a lot like hell in the end)

by alabae



Category: Empire (TV 2015)
Genre: Angst, Break Up, Leaving, M/M, Michael leaves Jamal, Sad, i rlly have no idea what to tag this as
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-01
Updated: 2015-07-01
Packaged: 2018-04-07 05:19:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4250820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alabae/pseuds/alabae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How Michael leaves. Quiet, calm and collected. But every human suffers through emotions and he is only human, his inner turmoil terrifies him. And the love can't win in the end, because love always hurts. </p><p>(He packs a suitcase and calls a friend.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Act of Leaving (oh baby, paradise seemed a lot like hell in the end)

**Author's Note:**

> I literally wrote this just after finishing up the sixth episode and it's been sitting in my folder ever since. So without further ado, I finally decided to post the story. 
> 
> Enjoy, and feedback is always appreciated.

He pulled the empty suitcase out from under his bed. That, and the old traveling bag would fit everything. 

Culinary School, Latino, and gay. He never would have had an easy life, and Michael Sanchez knew it. Not that his life had been particularly bad, or had, or requiring special survival skills. Truthfully, Culinary School didn’t sound like a bad thing, especially taking into consideration that he had always loved cooking and could actually prepare a five-course-meal without setting the kitchen on fire, but being a chef didn’t pay well most of the time, and he wasn’t special. He wouldn’t be the next Jamie Oliver or Martha Stewart. 

He was fine with that, with being nobody special or talented. Growing up, he had always been a quiet, silent but good-natured kid, and nothing had changed much. Sometimes he felt like he should speak up more, because other people don’t know if they hurt you if you don’t tell them. That has always been his problem in any relationship with any person. Keeping silent about his problems, feelings, thoughts. Nobody had to feel like they were talking to a stone wall or robot, but he never was fully honest. It took a lot for him to open up, and even then he would hide. 

But Jamal was talented. He knew it immediately after he had met him - granted, he had simply thought he was talented with his mouth, or he thought that afterwards, because he wasn’t so sure he had been able to think while Jamal had sucked him off. 

Michael put his pants into the suitcase, on top of his shirts. Where these his shirts? Somewhere in the two years, they had started sharing a closet. Similar clothes, he never could keep the shirts apart now. 

He shook his head. Looking back, perhaps it would have been better had they only remained a casual fling, another night spent in a stranger’s bed. They would have never crossed roads again, not sharing the same friends, or working together, or frequenting the same places. 

But Jamal was talented, Jamal was special, Jamal was not like the others. Jamal Lyons made coffee in a stranger’s kitchen when waking up in their apartment beside them, Jamal took two cups of coffee back to bed and woke you up with a kiss, and his number already in your contacts. Jamal Lyons wasn’t romantic when it came to first dates, he wasn’t the adjectives Michael would have listed three years ago when asked to describe his dream date, he was something else, someone else. 

They should never have worked. Different backgrounds, different interests, different personalities.  
And yet, despite these differences, they had worked. Simply because of their differences, but also because of their similarities. Different backgrounds, resembling troubled childhoods, each in their own way, balancing each other out. 

Recently Michael had no idea what was happening, what was going on. 

He shook his head, making his way across the small, dark apartment to the bathroom. 

The face the mirror threw back at him looked very much as it had always. Michael tried to forget his reflection the moment he saw it, instead taking his toothbrush, and hair gel and nothing more (when did they start sharing everything? When did he start living so much with Jamal, and forgetting his own?). Shouldn’t he see something, tears, red cheeks, feel something, except for this numbness and a slight feeling of relief? 

He knew when he zipped up the traveling bag and took a step back, staring at his packed belongings. (the ones he found, between the intertwined hands of them, not letting him go)

He knew he had no idea what was happening, what was going on. In him, in Jamal, in their life (you could not separate it). 

Why was he leaving? Usually he was the one left behind, the others did the leaving. His sister, parents, Josh, Cara, Santiago. Michael was left on the ground, broken and given up, like a toy you once had that was broken and you had given up on repairing it. Why wasn’t he pretending nothing was wrong, ignoring issues and problems and suspicions harboring in the back of his mind? Perchance his past relationships had crippled him, perchance his childhood experiences (sometimes he woke up with sweating, his heart thumping so fast and loud he feared it would wake Jamal) had ruined him. 

What was happening to Jamal? He had never cared for fame or money, but sometimes it seemed to Michael like his opinion had taken a spin towards the opposite direction recently. Their whole life had changed so much since Cookie had come into the picture (not again, not again; she had never had been before). Had Michael been paranoid when he had been upset? 

Standing in front of the ghetto-ass, as Cookie described the broken down apartment building, waiting for Alejandro to arrive and pick him up (best friends with flexible schedules should be more appreciated, he found as he stood in the sunlight on the sidewalk), Michael reflected and reflected and thought (despite being flexible, Alejandro lived across town, which in New York ensured at least half an hour of traffic). 

The whole problem with Michael was the whole process he was going through now: thinking and reflecting and thinking and never speaking up, never saying what was on his mind, never expressing his opinions, never questioning things. He was quiet, he wasn’t dumb, yet he kept on doing the same mistake every time. Only this time, he was instead of ignoring the issues and his problems, running away. Acknowledging them, but still running away. 

Or maybe he simply knew the right time when to leave a battlefield before someone ended up dead. 

Alejandro had arrived, and Michael eagerly put his baggage into the car, stepped into it himself, and Alejandro, asking no questions because he knew this, he knew Michael and his life and everything, just drove away. 

Or maybe he just preferred escaping partly unscathed to being taken prisoner, wounded, lost, with no hope  
left, drained. 

Escaping wasn’t taking a break, it was a clean cut, a war to never be started again.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm so sorry it's so depressing and hopeful. honestly, i actually planned to make a chaptered fic, but after watching the whole season, i can't bring myself to do it.


End file.
